An Ocelot Will Predict the Winners of Some of the World Cup Matches

Isidoro is under a lot of pressure these days. Not only does he have to make some tough decisions about which teams he thinks will advance toward the World Cup finals, but he also has to Tweet about them—which is hard because, well, Isidoro is a wild feline that lives at Franklin Park Zoo. (Spoiler: cats don’t have thumbs).

This week PRI’s The World launched a Twitter account, with the support of the Dorchester-based animal sanctuary, and announced that Isidoro—or Izzy—a Brazilian Ocelot, would be calling the shots about which matches the U.S. will win in the coming weeks as the team prepares to take on a host of competitors from around the globe. Izzy’s first prediction, for the U.S. versus Ghana match on Monday, June 16, will be announced this Friday.

According to PRI’s The World, who partnered with Franklin Park Zoo officials to get Izzy involved in the prediction process, the Ocelot will use his “special predictive powers” to make guesses about the winner of each of the U.S. games, as well as the World Cup final. After channeling his inner soccer spirit, Izzy will be presented with some of his “favorite items” ahead of each scheduled match, and whichever one he picks—item A or item B—will determine his guess for which team will win a particular game and advance in the competition. “We find a lot of the time when zoos do this, the animals are pretty right on,” said Jeannine Jackle, assistant curator at the Franklin Park Zoo and an avid soccer fan. “He may or may not pick the winner for us, but he’s such a busy guy that we think he will.”